


i won't wait forever, baby

by joeysnowy



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Character Study, M/M, other than 'me projecting onto fangs a lot', theres really no other way to describe this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-12-07 11:57:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20975531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joeysnowy/pseuds/joeysnowy
Summary: Sweet Pea's got a girl.





	i won't wait forever, baby

**Author's Note:**

> title from wait forever baby by mal blum bc that song is like. just this entire fic. go listen to that album y'all mx. blum is a legend
> 
> nothing is explicitly described but there are mentions of:  
\- death (wrt midge)  
\- cancer  
\- fangs' bullet wound  
\- uhhh drugs i guess, if you count jingle jangle  
riverdale is a show, y'all

Sweet Pea’s got a girl.

“Does it matter if it’s a girl friend or a girlfriend?” Fangs asks Toni over the phone. She and Cheryl are somewhere on the west coast, running dusty highways on their shiny new gas guzzlers. Too busy to do more than check their phones every couple of days, but it’s nice of her to check in every once in a while.

He hears her hum, thinking. “To Sweet Pea, it does,” Toni says. “I mean, has he told you about her? Does he talk about her?”

Fangs thinks about seeing Sweet Pea and Josie at Pop’s, in the corner booth behind the jukebox where you can see the door, but anyone walking in wouldn’t notice you immediately. Laughing together like there was something only they could ever know. Sweet Pea was facing the door, but Fangs had ducked out right before either of them could see him. “He’s mentioned her a couple times,” he says.

“Hey.” Fangs knows Toni well enough that he can almost see her face in front of him, giving him disapproving eyebrows. “Don’t stress, okay? I’ve been there before, it sucks. Just have to wait it out.”

Fangs pretends not to know what she means by “there” and makes a quick excuse before hanging up, something about his mother and the doctor and getting home before dark. Toni doesn’t sound convinced, but she doesn’t send him a text until the morning, a small heart emoji and nothing else.

He doesn’t bring it up again.

It’s not a problem to Fangs, really. He doesn’t have to worry about getting caught fooling around after dark or finding condoms or buying gifts or whatever else comes with girls. He’d had enough of that after Midge…

Well. After Midge. It didn’t really have the same appeal to him.

So Sweet Pea having a girl? Shouldn’t bother him. They talk about their hook-ups all the time, from the familiar Serpent faces to the Northsider girls wanting to feel rebellious. It’s not that big of a deal, especially since when Fangs told Sweet Pea about Midge, Sweet Pea had just laughed and told him congrats for hooking a Northsider’s girlfriend, and they moved on.

What does bother him is Sweet Pea missing Serpent meetings on the regular, only coming back home after most of the younger Serpents had dispersed and it was just some of the older Serpents passing bottles back and forth. It bothers him when Fangs wanders through the woods alone, avoiding Northsider neighborhoods and wishing he had someone at his back, for protection or even for the company. It bothers him when Sweet Pea’s constantly checking his phone, even on long drives when it’s meant to be just the two of them, distracted by the thought of another text from Josie.

“You good?” Fangs asks, after the third time Sweet Pea smothers a snort. He glances at Sweet Pea, who had forgone his coveted driver’s seat to be able to keep an eye on his phone.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he says, and when Fangs lets himself look at him at the stop Sweet’s staring at his phone with a look Fangs can only describe as _fond_.

It stings in him, this feeling. He hates putting words to things―hated the idea of saying the word cancer out loud after his mom got diagnosed, hated calling Midge a girlfriend (she wasn’t his, anyways), almost hated calling himself a Serpent without Sweet Pea at his side―so he pretends not to know a word for this thing.

The thing inside him plagues him anyways, like a white light at the corner of his eye that never blinds him but shines bright and insistent, calling his attention.

He pretends it isn’t there: not at the Serpents’ meetings, not in the woods, not in the car with Sweet Pea and him and another, alien voice at the end of a phone line. Not there, not anywhere but in his head and who can rely on that anyways?

So he lies low for a while. Acts friendly to mostly everyone, tries not to butt heads with anyone. Deals Jingle Jangle quietly, for the extra cash. No Northside business wants to hire a Serpent, even if he doesn’t live on the Southside anymore.

He spends long summer nights lying on the floor of his living room, too tense to sleep but not wanting to wake his mom in the bedroom. Watches dust motes float around in the yellow lamplight. When he does sleep, at the point where the street lamps turn off and the birds make their yawns, it’s restless and undefined, filled with accusations and the pain of a bullet in his gut and Midge, who was a Northsider and someone else’s girlfriend and a girl who was never meant to be seen with the likes of him.

He shows up to Serpent meetings drowsy and holding back yawns. Sweet Pea either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.

Both options seem like hell to Fangs.

**Author's Note:**

> shouts out to ley for encouraging me to post this extremely indulgent... thing where i projected my summer pining feelings for a boy onto fangs and it worked. i haven't posted in a hot minute (years)
> 
> im @quiltedleaves on twitter and @happierstories on tumblr, come say hi!


End file.
